Once again, thank you everybody for your kind generosity. I am so incredibly grateful and feel more motivated than ever to keep forging ahead. We’re facing some stiff political headwinds but I believe that with all of you at our backs we’ll be able to come through even stronger on the other side.
The MAGA cult is feeling its oats right now but reality is going to bite very soon. We’ll be here to document the victories and the atrocities and I hope you’ll all stop by frequently to see what we’ve dug up, analyzed or otherwise just observed with dismay or delight. Barring a round-up to the camps we’ll be here 7 days a week doing that thing we do.
I’m going to leave this up until New Year’s just in case there are any stragglers. And thank you again, from the bottom of my heart.
Here’s another Washington Post story that’s worth reading in full. (gift link) Yes, it’s another one of those “what do the Trump voters really think” stories but this one is a real doozy. They went to Pennsylvania to speak to low income voters who voted for him.
Here’s an example of what they said:
“We helped get you in office; please take care of us,” Mosura said, shifting the conversation as though she were speaking to Trump. “Please don’t cut the things that help the most vulnerable.”
“Trump won’t cut necessary programs, and nowhere has he said he is cutting any of that,” Ryan said. “He is cutting bloated government. He is not cutting programs that work for the American people.”
“It’s not cutting government programs, it’s cutting the amount of people needed to run a program,” Tillia, who said he is unable to work after suffering from mini strokes, said. “They are cutting staff, which could actually increase the amount of the programs that we get.”
Davis, a retired artist, subsists on a monthly $1,300 Social Security payment & $75 in food stamps. She rents her studio apartment for $385 per month. … “We are old & tired & just want to be taken care of, & Trump has too much common sense, so I don’t think he is going to do anything to hurt us.”
I will admit that there’s a huge part of me that thinks these people are getting what they deserve. They are adults and they have agency. They could have resisted the siren’s call of Trump’s Big Hatefest Show. But when you think about the the fact that they all live in communities and among families that are red-pilled Trump cultists and the media diet they are comfortable with is full of propaganda, it’s really not surprising. They simply don’t hear anything else.
(On the other hand I’m going to guess these people are among those who believe that they are entitled to their benefits, it’s just all those undeserving Black and brown people who are eating out of the government through and bankrupting he country. That’s usually how it goes anyway.)
If you have time to read one long story today, I recommend this one about the South Korea coup attempt in the Washington Post. I’m including a gift link so you can read the whole thing. Let’s just say the echoes are deafening:
Piecing together their accounts shows that Yoon’s plan had probably been months in the making and that he intended to use martial law to target political opponents and pursue baseless election fraud claims — a much more extensive agenda than he has claim
[…]
There was Yoon’s increasingly sharp rhetoric about his opponents. Then came the surprise appointment of his friend as defense minister. Then that minister surrounded himself with loyalists at the top of the chain of command. It seemed as if something as extreme as martial law could be in the works, said Park, formerly the nation’s deputy intelligence chief.
“We knew they were an extremely right-wing force, and they would do things we cannot imagine,” he said. “I warned this is a dangerous situation, it’s going to change quickly.”
All year, South Korea’s domestic political scene had been consumed by scandals — relentlessly targeted by the opposition — alleging corruption involving Yoon’s wife. The government declined to investigate, and the opposition blocked government initiatives, including budget measures, in response.
Yoon became increasingly isolated as he grew more frustrated, analysts say, leaning on a tiny group of loyalists, including Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun. This made Yoon more volatile, said Park Sung-min, a veteran political consultant.
Yoon’s decision in September to appoint Kim as the top defense official had prompted concerns, Park said. Not only was Kim known to be close to Yoon, the change was highly unusual ahead of the U.S. presidential election, given Seoul’s dependence on Washington for its security, the political consultant said.
Kim’s appointment also drew attention to the use of powerful school connections, which raised flags even in a nation that strongly values alumni networks.
Apparently, he was especially focused on manufactured charges of election interference and fraud. And yes, he did call out the military.
You have to read the whole thing. It’s such a cautionary tale. But then South Korea is apparently a much more highly developed democracy than America (despite our being 250 years old…) so they are actually managing to get rid of the guy who corrupted their government. We don’t do that here. When one of our presidents attempts a coup we send him home to his mansion for a few years to collect a bunch of money and then elect him again.
I wrote a bit about this yesterday so there’s no need to go into detail. (If you want it, just check into Twitter today…) But the little brouhaha did open the eyes of some of the MAGA folk who now realize that Musk has no respect or regard for them, is in it for himself, and his “free speech” yammering is all BS. Imagine that.
I think one of the sleeper hit sideshows of this next year is going to be MAGA on MAGA infighting. We’re seeing it here on social media and we’ve already seen it in the US Congress. Democrats are impotent and these people aren’t alive unless they’re going after someone so it stands to reason they’d start eating their own.
I suppose Dear Leader could do something. Unfortunately:
The ballot counting is over but not the litigation
Welcome to the Great State of North Carolina (ProPublica):
Months before voters went to the polls in November, a group of election skeptics based in North Carolina gathered on a call and discussed what actions to take if they doubted any of the results.
One of the ideas they floated: try to get the courts or state election board to throw out hundreds of thousands of ballots cast by voters whose registrations are missing a driver’s license number and the last four digits of a Social Security number.
But that idea was resisted by two activists on the call, including the leader of the North Carolina chapter of the Election Integrity Network. The data was missing not because voters had done something wrong but largely as a result of an administrative error by the state. The leader said the idea was “voter suppression” and “100%” certain to fail in the courts, according to a recording of the July call obtained by ProPublica.
This novel theory is now at the center of a legal challenge by North Carolina appeals court Judge Jefferson Griffin, a Republican who lost a race for a state Supreme Court seat to the Democratic incumbent, Allison Riggs, by just 734 votes and is seeking to have the result overturned.
In July 2024, the North Carolina chapter of the Election Integrity Network convened online to plan its efforts ahead of the presidential election. Worried about a surge of voter registrations from nonwhite voters who they believed would back Democrats, the activists discussed how to assemble a “suspicious voters list” of people whose ballots they could challenge.
Then, one of the group’s board members, Jay DeLancy, said he had another idea “that’s a lot slicker.”
DeLancy said that if a candidate lost a close election, the loss could be overturned by questioning the validity of voters whose registrations are missing their driver’s license and Social Security information. “Those are illegal votes,” he claimed. “I would file a protest.”
Jim Womack, the leader of the chapter, immediately pushed back: “That’s a records keeping problem on the part of the state board. That’s not illegal.”
But it’s nothing ventured, nothing gained in the election-rigging business.
By any means necessary
Though Griffin’s challenge of Riggs’ victory is now being considered in federal court, legal experts say it could still end up back where he intended: in front of the state Supreme Court.
Griffin’s petition is making what experts describe as extreme asks to the Supreme Court: to allow him to bypass the lower courts, to allow ballots to be thrown out without proving that voters did anything knowingly wrong and to essentially decide whether to change its composition to six Republicans and one Democrat.
Getting this dubious case somehow to the state Supreme Court is the endgame here. If not to throw the election to Griffin, then to force a new election.
And this Griffin guy want to sit on the same Supreme Court.
A Boxing Day survey of storm devastation off the beaten path
Ridgetops look like they’ve been bombed. Riverbeds are scoured, banks ripped open and lined with trash. Trees that once obscured the views are uprooted, toppled and lying in ranks. You’ve likely seen post-Helene images from western North Carolina. Many are of the River Arts District in Asheville and of devastation in nearby Swannanoa to the east. The Washington Post this week profiled Swannanoa flood victims from a row of mill houses left over from the days of the Beacon blanket factory, long gone.
A month ago, I told readers the region was out of the news but not out of the woods. That’s still true. Except on Boxing Day I surveyed some of the worst damage myself for the first time and came home stricken. The photos cannot convey the impact of the storm where news crews don’t go.
The bottom fell out of the sky on Sept. 25, two days before the remnants of Hurricane Helene even reached WNC. The rainfall was torrential and the ground saturation thorough. When the winds arrived on Friday morning, trees, big ones still in leaf, leaned over and fell everywhere in the city, shredding power lines and snapping power poles. Only more so did along exposed ridges. Picture the bomb damage in Gaza, only with trees instead of concrete. Where chainsaw crews cut downed trees off remote roadways, their carcasses line the highway for miles. When some agency will remove the debris, if ever, is anyone’s guess. Patching washed-out sections of roadway merits higher priority.
The winds hit hardest at elevation. Down below along waterways it was the flooding.
Along Paint Fork Rd. south of Barnardsville, flooding washed out culverts by the dozens. Fresh gravel drives covering shiny, new galvanized culverts lead to homes on the west side of the creek. In Barnardsville proper, flooding along Ivy Creek widened the streambed dramatically and left at least one destroyed bridge sitting in it downstream of where it once stood.
Forty-three died in Buncombe County alone, most from drowning, others killed by falling trees. In Swannanoa proper, where the Swannanoa River runs beside U.S. 70 in a low, flat valley, floodwaters spread out across a broad area and inundated homes and businesses. Much of the national news coverage you’ve seen focuses there.
But downstream and west of I-40 exit 59, the river loops north, west, and then south again. It flooded flat farmland before turning south and funneling itself into a narrow valley adjacent to the Botany Woods neighborhood. The waters rapidly filled the valley, tearing away vegetation and carrying away homes and residents.
I’d heard about the damage to this section of the county in October, but seeing it in person now that roads are serviceable again was shocking. Debris in some places hung in the trees 30 feet above the normal river level on Thursday. Trying to picture the scene was horrifying. Rain and wind now trigger survivors’ PTSD. It might be one of those internet “facts,” but more than a few here have told me we are among the few humans to witness a geologic event in their lifetimes.
So much Helene damage was never visible to national cameras. Flooding at PVC pipe manufacturer Silver-Line Plastics washed 10-ft lengths of pipe of various diameters downstream along the French Broad River north of Asheville. White plastic pipe hangs in the remaining trees lining the riverbanks for 30 or so miles like so much spaghetti.
“Silver-Line says it has hired a company to clean up the pipes,” Asheville Watchdog reports:
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is often tasked with maintenance and debris removal in rivers. David Connelly, a spokesperson for the Corps, explained how the system works in these types of disasters.
“Obviously the Silver-Line Plastics debris is an issue and is definitely on the radar; however, it is just one part of the estimated 10,445,000 cubic yards of debris across 27 counties in Western North Carolina we are working on,” Connelly said via email.
Upstream inside Asheville city limits, storm debris washed down the Swannanoa is not going anywhere soon.
First priority goes to direct relief efforts to people who’ve lost homes, belongings, businesses and jobs. River cleanup is almost a tertiary effort, if I read the reporting right. Where counties and states cannot handle the cleanup tasks, FEMA tasks the Corps to help. But that could take months. Removal of downed trees in remote areas like I drove though on Thursday could take longer. Years maybe. Or never.
When election results rolled in on November 5, among our first thoughts here was federal relief will dry up under Trump 2.0. Already the Republican majority in Raleigh seems bent on cutting off state relief to devastated counties that shifted bluer. The continuing resolution passed in Washington a week ago provides “about $100 billion in aid for states stricken by hurricanes Helene and Milton, along with other disasters.” However, N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper (D) estimated in late October that North Carolina’s need alone tops $53 billion.
Trump has named his ambassador to Panama, the country he’s threatening with invasion and annexation:
Perhaps that name sounds familiar but you can’t quite place it? He a mover and shaker in Southern Florida, MAGA all the way. But you may recognize the name as one of the GOP operatives involved in a Proud Boys attack in Miami against Nancy Pelosi. Remember this?
The Proud Boys, called a hate group by the SPLC, joined the Miami Dade GOP’s protest of Shalala’s office event with Pelosi yesterday
Diaz, the Miami-Dade County Republican Party chairman, is employed by the Southern Strategy Group, a government relations firm.
One of Diaz’s co-workers is Kevin Cabrera, who was formerly employed by Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-FL). This is an image of Cabrera from the Southern Strategy Group website:
In footage of the demonstration that was posted on Big League Politics, it appears as though Cabrera (in a black shirt) joined Diaz as part of the angry mob:
He’s a “fierce fighter” alright. Trump does love a MAGA mob, so it stands to reason he’d choose one of his violent henchmen to be an ambassador.
This action was widely condemned by Republicans at the time. But those days are gone. This is completely acceptable right wing behavior these days.
The country’s largest agricultural constituency backed Trump in November, bucking California’s deep-blue electorate over his campaign promises to “open the faucet” and deliver more water to the state’s parched, conservative-leaning Central Valley. But now it’s reckoning with an uncomfortable contradiction: Trump also campaigned on mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, who make up at least half of the state’s agricultural workforce.
That’s left California’s agricultural barons, who employ the most farm workers of any state in the nation and grow half the produce consumed in the United States, nervously parsing Trump’s rhetoric.
“To say it would have an impact on California would be an understatement,” said Chris Reardon, vice president of policy advocacy at the industry group California Farm Bureau Federation. Reardon, who declined to say who he voted for, has been fielding calls from members asking him what exactly will happen to workers.
“We just don’t know yet,” he’s told them.
Trump has appointed anti-immigration hawks to top positions, like Thomas Homan as border czar, and pledged to begin deportations on “Day One” of his administration, through executive orders crafted to evade legal challenges and by undoing Biden-era restrictions on deportations. Dave Puglia, the president and CEO of the Western Growers Association, called the prospect of sweeps on farms “very troubling.”
Big Ag’s throwing a lot of money around in the hopes that a deal can be made to exempt agricultural workers from the mass deportation. I won’t be surprised if it works. They have a lot of clout.
Maybe there will be some raids on some processing plants or big farming operations to “send a message” and then they’ll let it go. I could see the same in some restaurants or certain neighborhoods and some ostentatious expulsions of people who are already in custody before they move on to something else.
Keep in mind that he was planning to run on closing the border until Biden pretty much did that and the Congress came up with that bipartisan draconian bill he ordered the Republicans to tank. Mass deportation was a relatively late campaign message. So, who knows how serious they really are beyond providing some thrilling visuals of abject cruelty toward migrants for their slavering cult members to enjoy.
It could happen, of course. It’s very hard to know just how much of this extremist agenda is for real and how much is Trump strutting around like a WWE wrestler. There will be legal challenges to everything they try and it’s always possible that events will overtake their plans in any case.
If it weren’t for all the human suffering involved, I’d say that all these Trump voting fools should have to get a taste of his toxic medicine. Let Miller and Homan have their way. However, these are human beings we’re talking about not pawns so I hope this is actually a show for the MAGA cult and not a real policy. Of course, even the show will bring misery to many people so it’s hardly something to wish for. But it’s probably the best we can do in the current circumstances.
Oh, and Trump can’t “open the faucet” either. And they, of all people, know that. It’s absurd. They believe what they want to believe about his policies but they backed him for the same reason all his voters did — he owns the libs. It’s what they all have in common, rich and working class alike. That’s what makes MAGA tick.
My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Go home and get a nice quiet sleep — Neville Chamberlain
How’d that work out? As you no doubt recall, Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia the next day.
For decades, the Republicans accused the Democrats of being Neville Chamberlains every time they suggested that the right’s bellicose saber rattling was over the top. They are still saber-rattling — against our allies like Canada, Mexico, Panama and Greenland, as we have seen during the Trump transition. Trump seems to have decided that threats of territorial expansion and invasion is going to be a cornerstone of his new administration.
But when it comes to Russia, the GOP has become Neville Chamberlain on steroids:
Rep. Ryan Zinke responds to Russia allegedly downing another passenger jet by suggesting Ukraine pledging to not join NATO and handing over Crimea to Russia would be "a good start" for negotiations to end Putin's war on Ukraine pic.twitter.com/iJl5DG1Nb7
Accountability is only for people the Republicans don’t like. For his friends, (like Vladimir Putin) no act of provocation and violence is worthy of condemnation. It’s always a reason for Putin’s enemies to capitulate and give him whatever he wants.
Interesting, no? Trump and his tech bro buddies need labor so it’s important that we make sure they can immigrate. I guess all the construction, agriculture, hospitality jobs that are currently filled by the foreigners Trump plans to deport are going to be filled by what? Prison labor? We have less that 4% unemployment. Who’s going to do it?
Musk doesn’t care about any of that, of course. He went on to explain:
“The number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low. Think of this like a pro sports team: if you want your TEAM to win the championship, you need to recruit top talent wherever they may be. That enables the whole TEAM to win.”
“There are over 330 million people in America. Surely, there must be enough among them to build your ultimate team?Why would you deny real Americans that opportunity by bringing foreigners here?”
There were dozens and dozens of similar replies, many people arguing and obviously upset that the richest man in the world can’t find a way to train or otherwise make Real Americans the beneficiaries of silicon valley profits.
Musk was having none of it:
It comes down to this: do you want America to WIN or do you want America to LOSE.
If you force the world’s best talent to play for the other side, America will LOSE.
He means, “if you want me and my rich pals to win.” And that is a very old right wing conservative talking point. It’s called “trickle down” and it is antithetical to the alleged populism fuelling MAGA. Who’s going to tell them?
This could get very interesting if someone can put puppet president Donald Trump on the spot over this. A lot of those MAGA followers on Twitter don’t seem to think that Musk and his tech-bro buds are special and should be allowed to have special dispensation from the foreigner purge of America.
At some point some of them are going to realize that Musk is an immigrant himself.
Update — Vivek Ramaswamy tweeted this:
The reason top tech companies often hire foreign-born & first-generation engineers over “native” Americans isn’t because of an innate American IQ deficit (a lazy & wrong explanation). A key part of it comes down to the c-word: culture. Tough questions demand tough answers & if we’re really serious about fixing the problem, we have to confront the TRUTH:
Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer). That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG.
A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.
A culture that venerates Cory from “Boy Meets World,” or Zach & Slater over Screech in “Saved by the Bell,” or ‘Stefan’ over Steve Urkel in “Family Matters,” will not produce the best engineers.
(Fact: I know *multiple* sets of immigrant parents in the 90s who actively limited how much their kids could watch those TV shows precisely because they promoted mediocrity…and their kids went on to become wildly successful STEM graduates).
More movies like Whiplash, fewer reruns of “Friends.” More math tutoring, fewer sleepovers. More weekend science competitions, fewer Saturday morning cartoons. More books, less TV. More creating, less “chillin.” More extracurriculars, less “hanging out at the mall.”
Most normal American parents look skeptically at “those kinds of parents.” More normal American kids view such “those kinds of kids” with scorn. If you grow up aspiring to normalcy, normalcy is what you will achieve.
Now close your eyes & visualize which families you knew in the 90s (or even now) who raise their kids according to one model versus the other. Be brutally honest.
“Normalcy” doesn’t cut it in a hyper-competitive global market for technical talent. And if we pretend like it does, we’ll have our asses handed to us by China.
This can be our Sputnik moment. We’ve awaken from slumber before & we can do it again. Trump’s election hopefully marks the beginning of a new golden era in America, but only if our culture fully wakes up. A culture that once again prioritizes achievement over normalcy; excellence over mediocrity; nerdiness over conformity; hard work over laziness.
That’s the work we have cut out for us, rather than wallowing in victimhood & just wishing (or legislating) alternative hiring practices into existence. I’m confident we can do it. 🇺🇸 🇺🇸
The party that rejects vaccines, climate change, higher education and expertise of all kinds is leading that charge? Lol! Drink more bleach (and raw milk) America!